


Better to Have a Friend than an Enemy

by Anonymous



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Exploring the Pegasus galaxy through the Tava bean trade, Gen, Genii (Stargate), Negotiations, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-26
Updated: 2021-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-26 11:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30105255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Charin takes Teyla with her on a trading excursion, and introduces her to the Genii, a society of simple, honest and hardworking Tava bean farmers...
Relationships: Teyla Emmagan & Charin (Stargate)
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2021





	Better to Have a Friend than an Enemy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zabbers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zabbers/gifts).



“The Genii are simple people,” Charin said, as they stepped through the Ring and into a lush, green landscape. This was the fifth time Charin had taken Teyla with her on one of her trading expeditions, finally judging Teyla old enough to begin to learn to take over from her one day, and Teyla was eager to see what this meeting would bring and how Charin would tackle it. “They do not fight the Wraith, and they have not moved planets for some generations, at least. I think they just stay because they are worried about their Tava beans on any other planet.”

Teyla could believe that. The Genii were famous for their Tava beans, and rightly so – they were widely considered the best in the galaxy. No other people could grow them so rich and full in flavor, though many were the people who farmed them. The Tava bean was sturdy, and could grow in many soils and climates, but it preferred the temperate climate of the Genii homeworld – the planet had very small seasonal variations in temperature, and due to the size of the planet, each season lasted a long time. Teyla knew of worlds that could pass through two seasons for each season of the Genii. The soil was also good for the Tava bean, rich and fertile, with both plenty of water and good drainage, allowing the plant to flourish, and allowing the Genii to live their simple life – a luxury, in the Pegasus galaxy, to have the capability to start anew on the same planet after each culling, to not feel the need to meet the Wraith with futile violence, and to not have to scramble for meager resources against others of their own kind. In fact, Teyla thought, it was odd that they had managed to keep their world to themselves when they did not use weapons, that nobody had thought to take it from them, since they were so defenseless. Clearly the galaxy was a better place than she feared it might be - and on the dark days, she would remember the Genii, and how they could maintain a peaceful, prosperous existence, despite everything.

They were met at the Ring by a young couple. They were dressed simply, but their clothes were remarkably whole and clean for people who spent most of their days near the soil of the Earth in hard work. Perhaps they had changed for company.

“Charin, my friend,” said the man with a welcoming smile. “It is good that you have come.”

“Tyrus,” Charin responded warmly. “May I introduce Teyla Emmagan, who will one day take over from me. I am introducing her to all our friends across the galaxy.”

“Not for some time, I hope,” said the woman. “We are always happy to receive you as our friend, Charin. I am Cilla,” she said to Teyla, “and this is my husband Tyrus.”

“Who knows what the future will bring?” said Charin. “I hope I will get the chance to continue doing this for many years more, but…”

She trailed off, and they all knew how the sentence finished. The Genii made sympathetic faces.

“May you continue to have the blessings of the Ancestors for many years,” the man said, bowing his head to her slightly. It was nice of him, but the Ancestors’ blessings were often far more subtle than sparing someone’s life if it was their turn to go – especially if it was to the Wraith. The Ancestors, they had all come to experience bitterly, could not save them from the Wraith, for all their other blessings.

“I hope we shall all continue to have the blessings of the Ancestors,” Charin replied with a sincere smile. “And I hope we shall continue to enjoy their gifts for many years to come.”

The Tava beans were said to be the last gift of the Ancestors, before they had left the galaxy, some said as an apology for not being able to do more to help them against the Wraith, others said simply because the Ancestors cared about their descendants and wished the best for them, so they seeded this hardy, nourishing, adaptable plant all across the galaxy for their descendants to find. It being a gift from the Ancestors explained why it could be found in so many places. Teyla did not know of any culture that did not have some use for the beans in their cooking, even if they could not grow them themselves.

The Balarians roasted their beans, which gave them a more bitter flavor which was very good for making hot drinks with. The Latirans soaked their beans in brine, not water, together with the fish the brine was meant to preserve – it meant that the beans they traded were salty to the point where they were inedible as they were, but went very well in the fish stew the Latirans were famous for. The Daganians ground the beans into flour and made flatbread from them, whereas the Manarians made their bread with pure flaxseed but made the beans into a paste to spread on the bread. The true value in the Tava bean lay in its versatility: its flavor was quite subtle when eaten fresh from the shell, almost bland, even, but each method of preparation brought a different flavor out from it. Exchanging recipes was also one of the functions of the traders, along with bringing information and knowledge from one planet to another. The latter, she was coming to realize, might even be the most important function of the traders.

They were led through a winding path. Teyla tried to remember the way – it would be useful if they needed to leave in a hurry, but she thought they had made it deliberately hard to follow. It made sense – the Genii did not fight, so they had to rely on something else to protect themselves.

The village was quiet when they arrived, and Tyrus explained that most of the villagers were out in the fields, weeding. It would soon be first harvest time, and they were there to trade for the crop. Unlike most other planets, who got two to three harvests from a growing season, the Genii could get up to five, due to the shape and size of their planet. Their relative luxury meant that they were unwilling to leave the world. Rather than moving to escape the Wraith threat, as so many other societies did, the Genii hunkered down, faced the threat when it came, and dealt with the aftermath when the threat was over. They were rooted in their planet, and their roots were as deep as those of the Tava beans they were known for. They had put too much into the world to want to leave. Their population was smaller than when Charin had been Teyla’s age, she had been told, but they had not allowed that to break them. The Genii were hardy people. It helped that the Ancestors had blessed them with good, loamy soil to grow their crops.

Traders came to them, rather than the other way around. That was the function Charin was there to fill, and the function Teyla would one day take over. The traders were the ones who connected the societies of Pegasus to each other. They brought iron and metals, spices and herbs, and other things the Genii could not get from their own planet.

Soon, people started to trickle in from the fields. Teyla was unsure how they had been warned about their guests, because she had seen no communication going between the fields and the village, but the villagers had clearly had time to change into clean clothes and wash the dirt off themselves.

“We don’t have a lot to give you, this time,” the leader of the Genii, a middle-aged man named Cowen with a weathered face said. “We had a bad spate of Wraith cullings right around planting time, got the beans into the soil late, and lost a lot of good workers.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” said Charin. “If you need more people, we are happy to see if we can find others who might fit in with you.”

Another of the roles of the traders was to make matches between peoples that had been ravaged by the Wraith, to ensure the survival of communities by bringing them together.

“That’s kind of you, but we have generally bad experiences with outsiders. They tend to want more than we can give. We live a simple life here, but it is a hard life.”

“I understand,” said Charin, although Teyla would have argued further. Most people in the galaxy lived hard lives – what made the Genii special?

“We can’t give you as much as you want,” Cowen said. “Not for what you’re offering.”

“It is hard for everyone in the galaxy,” Charin said sympathetically. “We all give as much as we can spare to each other. I am sorry that you are suffering right now. We will of course do our best to help, and if you need to keep your crops for yourself at the moment, we will understand. I am sure that between Sion and the Free People of Riva, we can make up for the lack of Tava from Genii. Perhaps you would instead be willing to trade flaxseed or tubers?”

Several of the Genii who were watching seemed uncomfortable with this, and Teyla saw Cowen clench his jaw for just a moment. Good. Charin’s threat to take their trade elsewhere had not gone unnoticed.

“Tava from Sion?” Cowen said with a sneer. “Can you even see their beans? They’re smaller than a fingernail, and half the time the frost takes the beans before they even get a second harvest.”

“Perhaps,” Charin said. “But the bread that is made from Sionian beans is as moist as that from the Genii.”

“But is the stew as tasty?” Tyrus asked, and Cowen gave him a look, but allowed the interruption.

“It’s tasty enough, if you need it to be,” Teyla replied. “Things do not need to be perfect to be serviceable.”

“I believe Sateda is developing a process to speed up the sowing and harvesting of Tava beans by inventing machines to help,” Charin added. “They were very optimistic about its success. If that is the case, then they will be able to produce much more themselves, which will of course be for the benefit to all in the galaxy.”

But not to the Genii, went unsaid but still implied.

Cowen scoffed.

“They might have fancy machinery, but that can’t make up for poor soil. I’m sure they grow excellent tuttles, but Tava beans need more and better to truly thrive. Nobody knows how to nurture Tava like the Genii, and that will come out in the end.”

He may have a point, but even Tava grown in poor soil would feed a society that needed food, even if the beans from elsewhere were slightly smaller, slightly drier, and slightly less rich in flavour. There were few peoples in the galaxy who could afford to be picky, and the Satedans were one of them - if they had less use for the Genii beans, then the Genii would be forced to trade with those who could offer them less. If the Satedans were developing processes to improve their own farming of the beans, Teyla thought it didn’t matter how much more superior the Genii soil was, or how much more the beans thrived under their tender care using the old-fashioned ways, the Satedan beans would still outclass theirs, just by virtue of being easier to produce and therefore more affordable.

“You are not as worried about the Satedan innovations as I thought you would be,” Charin said. “Surely, if one can trade less for more beans there, there is less reason to come to you?”

“Why should I be worried? Let the Satedans churn out more of their inferior product. Those who want quality will still come to us. We have the best beans, and the best farmers. There’s no machine that can make up for that. Good, honest hard work, that’s what makes our crops the best in the galaxy.”

The opening arguments having been made, they settled down to determine how much would be given for how much product. The Genii were mainly interested in metals, as they had no mining themselves. They had wood for housing, they grew their own food, they had the materials to make their own clothes, but they needed metal for tools.

They asked for an outrageous amount, to which Charin countered with a much more reasonable offer. The final deal was still more than Teyla would consider the Tava beans worth – even if they were better from the Genii than anywhere else. She wondered what they would do with all that metal – surely it couldn’t all go to tools? How often did their tools need to be replaced? And who was working it all? As far as she knew, they only had one blacksmith who was also a farmer, and didn’t devote all his time to smithing.

“You gave the Genii a very generous deal, Charin,” Teyla commented when were back on Athos, having been escorted by Tyrus and his daughter Sora, a girl in the middle of that awkward phase between girlhood and womanhood.

“They are struggling now,” Charin said, “and so we will help. When they are no longer struggling, they will give back to others who struggle. This is the way our societies survive.”

That was the truth. When the Manarian crop of Tava had been hit by Rotweed a few cycles back – a truly nasty fungus that killed the plant by shriveling up the leaves, and would infect the entire field by the time you noticed the first signs on the first plant – it was the Genii who had generously shared of their own seeds for free so they could replenish the crop and start anew.

“What do you think they are going to do with the metal?” Teyla asked. “They have traded for much, and I saw they had more with the smith.”

“They will do what they need,” Charin replied. “If it does not interfere with our lives, then we do not judge.”

“Is it protection from the Wraith, do you think?”

“If it is, then we are better off knowing nothing about it, until they know it works. We do not want to risk the knowledge falling into Wraith hands. They will share when they are ready.”

Teyla nodded. Another thought came to her.

“Do you think they might want to steal the Satedan machines and make their own?”

“Of some other people I might believe it,” Charin said, “but not the Genii. They are simple, honest folk, who put value on hard work – as they said, they think the Satedan machine brings down the value of the Satedan beans. I doubt they would do that to their own beans. Your distrust does you good, because there are many who would seek to use others ill. The galaxy is indeed full of those who hoard their resources for themselves, Wraith worshipers, those who would sell out other people – or worse, their own people – to the Wraith for their own safety. But too little trust can be as dangerous as too much, Teyla. If all you see around you are enemies, then all you will have around you are enemies. And it is always better to have a friend than an enemy.”

And several years later, when strangers with wraith-like weapons and no knowledge of the wraith came blundering into their camp and wanted to get to know them, Teyla remembered, and decided to extend her trust.


End file.
